Double-speed playback for iTunes?
The iPod app on the iPhone (and presumably the iPod Touch) supports playback at 2x the recorded speed. This is great for listening to talk-radio podcasts when I'm driving, as I can get about twice the information in the same amount of time.
Does iTunes itself support this kind of playback? I can't seem to find the option. I'd rather play in iTunes rather than on my iPhone when I'm at my desk.
Here is what Apple suggests (see "Get caught speeding"):
- Open the selected song file with Quicktime.
- Choose “Show A/V Controls.”
- Move the “Playback Speed” slider at the bottom of the window to your preferred speed.
In Snow Leopard's Quicktime Player, option-click on the fast-forward button to increase speed in 10% increments.
Most podcasts are MP3 files. In iTunes convert the file to an AAC file (with an extension of m4a.) Change the extension to m4b and the file becomes an audiobook which can be played faster.
Source: http://forums.ilounge.com/archive/index.php/t-143990.html
Not quite the answer you asked for, but quite closely related and I hit this site when I was still looking for the following, so I thought a post here might do someone else a favor.
After spending a while trying to get my mp3 lectures to play at double speed on my iPhone, I finally figured out the thing that iTunes uses to tell whether the file is a podcast or audiobook is a setting in:
"File-> Get Info-> Options tab-> Media Kind"
Set that to podcast or audiobook and voila, your iPhone will give you the option of 2x speed. This is great, because you can select a bunch of tracks and change the whole lot with a few clicks.